For many years I used to commute to and from London by train - first 70 miles and then, after moving, close to 100 miles each way. At the end of each day I would board the train tired, stressed and invariably grumpy.

One summer's Friday evening I'd missed my fast train home and had to take the stopping train instead that went slower than a snail on valium. This didn't help my mood. And onto this train, at the last minute, stepped a very disheveled looking gentleman - I say disheveled... I actually mean my first impression was that he looked rather like a tramp. He was filthy from head to toe and I mean Filthy. Oil, dirt, dust, mud, rust, etc... You name it, it was on his person somewhere.

And, of course, he sat next to me. Oh joy. Even more joy, he cracked open a can of lager, swigged it down rather fast, and then opened another one. Could this get any worse?

Throughout the journey he fidgetted and shuffled about as I shrank as much as could away from him. If I could have melted through the side of the train I probably would have done. But instead I hunched myself up against the window and roasted myself in the summer sun and got more and more grumpy.

I wished him anywhere but there. Dirty, smelly, fidgety, horrid, worthless man.

And then he started making a roll-up cigarette. Great. Not only is this stinky man making me physically uncomfortable, but he's about to light up as well and really make life fun. I reached the end of my tether.

Now then... my first instinct (grumpy, remember?), having suffered half the journey with this 'tramp' sitting next to me would have been to have a go at him and let him know just where he could put his cigarette. But something that evening made me choose a different track.

As this man continued to fiddle with his cigarette, instead of warning him imperiously (as often only we British can do) about this being a non-smoking carriage, I said "looks like your desperate for a cig, mate!" and grinned at him. (I have no idea where that impulse came from, or perhaps, just perhaps, I do...).

And from there, quite without my having any expectation, we struck up a conversation. It turned out that he had been working in a scrap yard breaking up bits of car and he'd been doing overtime. By the time he'd finished, the locker room (or office or somesuch) had been locked up and he had been unable to get cleaned up. He apologised (without being asked) for the state of his appearance, and explained that he was working in London during the week to support his family. He'd almost given up smoking - in fact his wife wouldn't let him smoke in the house for the sake of the children - and was going to squeeze one or two in somewhere in between the station and his home. He turned out to be a nice, polite, conscientious chap. Someone you'd hold up as an example of someone who - despite difficulties - lived up to his responsibilities in life. The sort of someone who deserves honouring.

He alighted from the train and I continued on my journey. Changed. I never saw him again, but that doesn't mean I've forgotten him.

In the space of one hot and sticky - and slighty whiffy - journey I learned that I'd been judging people based on their appearance. By just looking at the outward appearances of this man, I'd concocted evidence against him, tried him, judged and convicted him. But, by talking to him, I learned his real story. I'd learned that every man has a story that I cannot know until I get to know him. I learned that appearances are not everything. In fact, appearances are pretty much useless in most cases. What matters is what runs deeper.

Everyone has a story. Never presume to know a person unless you give them the chance to tell it to you.

I still catch myself starting to judge from time to time. But I stop myself now. Ten years ago I learned a valuable lesson.

---

Everyone has a story... but once upon a time I'd play a game of building that story myself...

I used to go to school on the London Underground. For a while, I would look at people around me on the train and try to build a story about them. A pretty lady would be a model and she'd be on her way to her first job. Another middle-aged lady would be the manager of a secretarial firm. A young man with a mohican would live in a squat with lots of other weirdly dressed young people and smoke drugs. Another man in a suit would be a stressed manager with a nagging wife and he'd be dreaming of escaping to a desert island (Reggie Perrin anyone?!)... Etc, etc.

Anyway, one day, a man, dressed in a parka, wearing scruffy shoes and looking - to my eyes - altogether shifty sat down opposite me. Immediately I decided that he was a bank robber and that he was on his way to meet his accomplices and then go off to steal diamonds or somesuch from a safety deposit box. I'd concocted this whole fantastical array of deviousness and criminality in my head...

And then he stood up to get off the train and his jacket moved a little... to reveal a clerical 'dog collar' shirt.

I never played that game again!